Hard drive not recognized as bootable-fixed

[MojoKrunch]

New WD 40GB in old ECS K7s5a, rev 3.1(I think), with 256MB PC2700 Kingston valueram(also new).
Tried installing XP from the CD like I've done several times before(old WD 40GB died slowly) and get the Windows folder installed on the HD but it won't load Windows to finish installing.
Just cycles through after restart.
(IIRC, I flashed the latest greatest BIOS last year sometime.)

Ok, broke out the boot floppy and tried to FDISK the drive, clean it up and start fresh, but now it tells me it can't see Drive 1.
Checked the jumpers... set to default setting.
Still nothing.

Pulled it out and added it to 2nd box with same Mobo and processor setup... could see the drive under Windows... deleted the folder off of drive.
Put it back... nada.
Same thing.

Into the 2nd box again and installed XP successfully.

Put it into new box and set BIOS to boot from HDD0 only.

Now it tells me that it can't find a boot disk that HDD0 is not bootable.

Any ideas?

EDIT:
Changed the CMOS battery just for the hell of it and finally flashed the BIOS and that fixed it.

brett

 

[lobadobadingdong]

sounds to me like the boot sector of that hdd is fubared. it's probably only good for storage now, rma it if it's still under warranty otherwise it's now a (fairly unre-liable)storage hard drive. I one that lasted for 2 years with the exact same problem before I sold the pc to someone else, so I don't know if it's still working or not, but don't keep any cryticle files on it.

 

[MojoKrunch]

Text sounds to me like the boot sector of that hdd is fubared. it's probably only good for storage now, rma it if it's still under warranty otherwise it's now a (fairly unre-liable)storage hard drive. I one that lasted for 2 years with the exact same problem before I sold the pc to someone else, so I don't know if it's still working or not, but don't keep any cryticle files on it.

I actually got XP installed on the hard drive in another box, so I think the drive is good.
What I'm trying to figure out is why the ECS MB in the new box won't recognize the drive as bootable.

I cleared the CMOS thinking maybe that might do it but no luck.
I did get a ?CMOS settings wrong? ?CMOS memory size wrong?, "press F1 to Run SETUP" ?F2 to load default values and continue? warning, however.

Could I need to change the CMOS battery?
Do I need to watch for anything if I change the battery?

I also tried a new cable, switching headers and pulling the CDROM off of the secondary header, but it still won't boot.

All I can think of to do next is to flash the BIOS and maybe change the CMOS battery.

Anybody got any ideas?

brett